Biography

He was born in Russia near Smolensk in 1920 and brought to the United State by his parents three years later. He grew up in Brooklin where he went to grammar school and at the age of eight he gained his citizen papers. A remarkable memory helped him to finish high school before he was sixteen. He then went on to Columbia University and resolved to become a chemist rather than follow the medical career his father had in mind for him. He graduated in chemistry and after a short spell in the Army he gained his doctorate in 1949 and qualified as an instructor in biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine where he became Associate Professor in 1955, doing research in nucleic acid. Increasingly, however, the pressures of chemical research conflicted with his aspirations in the literary field, and in 1958 he retired to full-time authorship while retaining his connection with the University. With nearly five hundred published books to his credit and several hundred articles, Asimov's output is prolific by any standards Apart from his many world-famous science fiction works, Asimov has also written highly successful detective mystery stories, a four-volume History of North America, a two-volume Guide to the Bible, a biographical dictionary, encyclopaedias, text-books and an impressive list of books on many aspects of science as well as two volumes of autobiography. He died in 1992.

Isaac Asimov wrote, about his love-affair with robots, "That issue [December 1938 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction"] contained Helen O'Loy by Lester del Rey, a story in which a robot was portrayed sympathetically. I was, I believe, only his second story, but I was a del Rey fan forever after. […] In the January 1939 issue of Amazing Stories, Eando Binder portrayed a sympathetic robot in I, Robot. This was much the poorer story of the two, but again I vibrated. Dimly, I began to feel that I wanted to write a story in which a robot would be portrayed lovingly. And on May 10, 1939, I began such a story. The job took me two weeks, for in those days it took me quite a while to write a story. I called it Robbie, and it was about a robot nursemaid, who was loved by the child it cared for and feared by the child's mother. […] On June 8, 1950, the collection was handed to Gnome Press, and the title I gave it was Mind and Iron. The publisher shook his head. 'Let's call it I, robot', he said. 'We can't', I said. 'Eando Binder wrote a short story with that title ten years ago.' 'Who cares?' said the publisher (though that is a bowdlerized version of what he really said), and I allowed myself, rather uneasily, to be persuaded."

Bibliography

Robbie (also published under Strange Playfellow) (robot short story - when it got 'humanity') (1940)
Reason (robot short story - when it got 'religion') (1941)
Liar (robot short story - when it mindread) (1941)
Runaround (robot short story - when it got its Three Laws) (1942)
Catch that Rabbit (robot short story) (1944)
Escape (also published under Paradoxical Escape) (robot short story) (1945)
Evidence (robot short story) (1946)
The Inevitable Conflict (robot short story) (1950)
I, Robot (collection of Asimov's eight first robot short stories) (1950)
The Rest of the Robots (a collection of robot short stories)
The Complete Robot (a collection of robot short stories)
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robot of Dawn
Robots and Empire

Pebble in the sky (1950)
The Current of Space

Prelude to Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Foundation Edge
Forward the Foundation

Earth is Room Enough
The Martian Way
The End of Eternity
The Winds of Change

Opus: The Best of Issac Asimov
The Early Asimov, Volume 1
The Early Asimov, Volume 2
The Early Asimov, Volume 3
The Stars Like Dust
Asimov's Mysteries
The Gods Themselves
Nightfall One
Nightfall Two
Buy Jupiter
The Bicentennial Man
Nine Tomorrows
Nemesis
Fantastic Voyage

Nightfall (w/ Robert Silverberg)
The Positronic Man (w/ Robert Silverberg)

Tales of the Black Widowers (detective stories)
More Tales of the Black Widowers (detective stories)
Casebook of the Black Widowers (detective stories)
Authorized Murder (detective stories)
The Union Club Mysteries (detective stories)

The Stars in their Courses (non-fiction)
The Left Hand of the Electron (non-fiction)
Asimov on Science Fiction (non-fiction)
The Sun Shines Bright (non-fiction)
Counting the Eons (non-fiction)
Far As Human Eye Could See (non-fiction)